WACKER does everything in its power to ensure that employees’ health is not impaired at the workplace. But our care for our employees goes much further than that. Demographic change has made it necessary that we help employees to remain healthy and productive for a longer working life. WACKER has signed the Luxembourg Declaration on Workplace Health Promotion in the EU. In doing so, we have undertaken to promote health and to encourage employees to improve their health.
The ultimate objective is to standardize and improve our health-management system groupwide. The requirements of the 2008 occupational health and safety regulation have been continuously implemented since then, and the pilot projects involved have also continued. The regulation defines 13 measures in total, ranging from workplace risk assessment and health promotion to a pandemic-preparedness plan. The success of these measures is reviewed in internal audits. In 2009, our US sites underwent such an audit, as did our facilities in Zhangjiagang (China) and India in 2010.
Two of the most important strategic instruments for ensuring occupational health and safety are medical checkups and health-promotion programs. Health Services at our Burghausen site advises employees in all health matters, particularly concerning availability for work and reintegration. Risk groups like diabetics, employees with back complaints or psychological problems receive in-depth care and are thus kept fit for work in the long term.
In 2009/2010, WACKER included key third-level executives (FK3) in the checkups for the first time. In order to improve the analysis of workplace stress, a project was initiated in 2010. In the same year, WACKER launched a pilot project together with the South German branch of the statutory pension insurance system (Deutsche Rentenversicherung Süd). The aim is to optimize the effectiveness of rehabilitation measures for employees, the Group and the insurer. WACKER’s Health Services department can now submit rehabilitation applications on an employee’s behalf, for expedited processing by the insurance system. The project involves WACKER company doctors working with partner clinics in order to tailor rehabilitation measures to the employee’s job profile. The pilot project is initially limited to WACKER’s largest site, Burghausen.
In Zhangjiagang, China, WACKER opened a medical center together with its joint-venture partner Dow Corning in 2008. Employees there carry out tasks including outpatient first aid, immunization shots and other preventive programs.
In the years to come, WACKER will be setting up five health-protection programs for its employees. One program will concern the topic of cardiovascular health.